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Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;for the Lord has spoken:“Children have I reared and brought up,but they have rebelled against me.The ox knows its owner,and the donkey its master’s crib,but Israel does not know,my people do not understand.” (Isaiah 1:2,3)

If you feed an animal he will recognize you as being the source of his food; all of us have received blessings from God but many fail to acknowledge him as the source of those blessings.

But not all animals respond in the same way. Under the Mosaic law the ox was considered a clean animal. It was suitable for sacrifice and its flesh could be eaten. The ox knows it owner.

The donkey was an unclean animal. It was useful for farmwork and transportation, but it could not be eaten or offered as a sacrifice. The donkey’s focus was not on the owner himself but on the food he received from his owner. Read the rest of this entry →

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A lot is said about God’s love. It is the topic of the most well-known verse in the Bible.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

But how often have you heard anyone say anything about God’s hatred? Some people believe that God never hates anyone or anything because they believe all hatred is wrong and God never sins. Here is what the Bible says about that.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven . . . a time to love, and a time to hate. (Ecclesiastes 3:1,8)

When we hate our hatred is usually sinful because we seldom know when hatred is called for. (Our love can also be sinful. We love something that God has told us we shouldn’t love or we love one thing more than another when we should love the second thing more.) God always knows when it is the proper time to love or hate. Read the rest of this entry →

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Christianity is based on love. It was love that made God send Jesus to die for our sins.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

All that God wants from us can be summarized in two commands.

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.This is the great and first commandment.And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40)

We are saved through faith but love is more important than faith and is the only acceptable motivation for what we do. Read the rest of this entry →

Whenever someone opposes same sex marriage he is accused of hating gays and his opinions are often called hate speech. Proponents of same sex marriage have attacked those who oppose it and have caused some to lose their jobs and have their businesses ruined. Some people do hate gays but Christians who oppose same sex marriage do so because we care about gays and want to protect them the harm that they will experience.

To see why this is so we need to look at what the Bible says about marriage. The first marriage was between the first man and the first woman. Read the rest of this entry →

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Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8

These two statements show that both truth and love are part of God’s character. We need to express both of them when telling others about God.

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

Ephesians 4:15

We must always speak the truth and what we say must be motivated by love. But what will happen if we speak truth without love or try to practice love while ignoring truth? We can find out by looking at two organizations in Topeka, Kansas, that do these things. Read the rest of this entry →

The Bible says a lot about love. We are told that God is love. He has demonstrated his love by sending his son, Jesus Christ, to die as a sacrifice for our sins so we can be forgiven.

God requires that we love others as well. Jesus said that the two greatest commands are to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are even commanded to love our enemies.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that all love is good. Jesus has told us that loving him should have priority over all other loves.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.